LOWELL -- Three mornings a week, 85-year-old Sis Grand starts her day at the Greater Lowell YMCA, lifting handweights and stability balls to the tune of electro-infused 1960s musical hits.

"I just love the exercise and, more than that, I love the people," said Grand, who's been a member at the Y for around nine years. "I believe exercise is very necessary, especially for seniors."

Grand was joined in Friday morning's Active Older Adults class by seven other women, who ran through a series of exercises designed to improve joint activity and range of motion, as well as providing a cardio workout.

Sis Grand works out at an Active Older Adults class at the YMCA of Greater Lowell. Watch video at lowellsun.com.

"The cardio you've got to make fun, and less geared to a hard workout, like you would with a younger class," instructor Jessica Green said. "It's hard for the seniors to get out to begin with, so you've got to keep it fun to keep them getting out."

Researchers behind a new study examining the health of people over age 65 across the commonwealth say Lowell may want to explore new ways to help its older residents get active.

According to the Tufts Health Plan Foundation's recently released Massachusetts Healthy Aging Report, 58.3 percent of Lowellians 65 and older took part in any physical activity in the past month, considerably lower than the state average of 72.4 percent.

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Meanwhile, most other Greater Lowell communities had at least average rates of physical activity, with Acton, Bedford, Boxboro, Burlington, Carlisle, Concord, Littleton and Wilmington nearly four points above average.

"That's not even asking about regular physical activity," said Elizabeth Duggan, the report's principal investigator and a professor of gerontology at the University of Massachusetts Boston's McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies. "That's just any sort of activity at all."

The report ranks Lowell, along with New Bedford, Fall River, South Boston, Springfield and Worcester, at the bottom of the pack when it comes to healthy aging.

Those five cities scored below average on at least 16 out of nearly 100 healthy aging indicators measured in the study. Lowell lagged the state in 19 criteria, with higher rates of hospital visits and of certain medical conditions.

Results opened eyes

The study's researchers, Duggan and fellow UMass Boston gerontology professor Nina Silverstein, said their results were a surprise.

They'd assumed, Duggan said, that because cities are designed to be more walkable, with sidewalks and centralized facilities, they'd be home to more active seniors with better health.

"Actually, we didn't find that," Duggan said. "We found that a lot of the problem spots were these urban areas, so we have to rethink how we optimally age."

More Lowellians age 65 and over reported an overall "fair" or "poor" health status than the average throughout the state, while fewer said they were satisfied with life, receiving adequate emotional support or participating in regular physical activity.

"What we want is to stimulate the conversation," Silverstein said. "What we want is to get people talking and thinking about these. What are the expectations and what can be changed?"

The study also found that Lowell has higher rates of Alzheimer's disease and related dementia, diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and complete tooth loss.

Statewide, 32 percent of people age 65 and older have diabetes, according to the report. In Lowell, that number shoots up to 44 percent of the 65-plus population of 11,478, or more than 5,000 people.

"Even the state average of 32 percent is too high, when you think about it," Duggan said. "But in Lowell, that should wake people up. That figure, it's approaching one-in-two."

Lowell Health Director Frank Singleton said the city has had a diabetes problem for years, and not just with its older residents.

"There's a number of reasons diabetes is very high in Lowell, and it has nothing to do with the elderly, necessarily," Singleton said. "There's been an explosion in the school system and the community, with Type II diabetes, the adult onset diabetes ... a lot of it's associated with the adverse effects of obesity."

Ayer, Dracut and Tyngsboro all have diabetes rates of around 40 percent. At the other end of the spectrum is Boxboro, with 15.6 percent, and Concord, with 17.4 percent. The average for the Greater Lowell area is 30 percent, slightly lower than the statewide average.

Demographics might come into play in Lowell's higher diabetes rate, since the city is home to large Hispanic and Cambodian populations.

"Both of those groups tend to have higher rates of diabetes," Duggan said. "I think what we may be seeing here is the fact that the populations are different here than different areas of the state."

The city's low healthy-aging scores are in spite of a "walkability" ranking of 77 out of 100, higher than all its bordering towns and lower than only Concord's 92 and Ayer's 83 in the broader community.

This means, Silverstein said, that there's an opportunity to increase the fitness opportunities available -- by organizing walking clubs, for example.

Also included in the report were FBI figures on the rates of violent and property crime per 100,000 persons in each community. Lowell has more of both types of crime than the state estimate, and significantly more violent crime -- 742 incidents per 100,000 persons in Lowell, compared to 428 per 100,000 statewide.

"Safety becomes a very important issue in terms of getting people out of their homes, and feeling safe to walk," Duggan said.

Carlisle, along with Wellesley, Harvard, Brookline, Belmont and Stow, scored better than the state average on more than 20 of the healthy-aging indicators, including one of the lowest rates of high blood pressure.

Dunstable leads the state for the lowest rate of depression diagnoses among its older residents, with 15.1 percent compared to the state average of 28.6 percent. Lowell's depression rate is 32.4 percent.

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